Stagnancy
by Phnx
Summary: Casper meets The Little Matchstick Girl, and they engage in confusing midsentence changes in perspective together, complete with run-ons. AU. Zemyx. Slash.


**Title:** Stagnancy  
><strong>Series:<strong> Kingdom Hearts  
><strong>CharacterPairing:** Zexion/Demyx, Axel, and a brief rash of OC!Mom  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Supernatural (I guess?) / Romance (I guess?) / Friendship (of the awkward variety)  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG-13  
><strong>Word<strong>**Count:** 1,609  
><strong>Description:<strong> Casper meets the Little Matchstick Girl, and they engage in confusing midsentence changes in perspective together, complete with run-ons. AU.  
><strong>Disclaimer: <strong>Kingdom Hearts © Disney and Square Enix. I don't even own the grossly-rewashed, transparent cliche.

-o-o-o-

Little Ienzo was just seven years old when his heart stopped beating.

His parents, his school nurse, his doctors, and scores of specialists all insisted with increasing frustration that his heart was, indeed, fully functional, because see we can feel its pulse if we press our fingers here, Zexion, and we can watch it pumping blood all around your body with this little machine, Zexion, and _you__are__still__alive,__Zexion,__you__need__your__heart__to__**live**__,__Zexion_, and it's not that strange that your son should be upset about his little friend being gone, see, kids tend to take these things pretty literally, see, but they were wrong, see, because Ienzo had _felt_his heart stop beating, suddenly and terrifyingly, and now there was just a dead, tight weight in his chest, see, and he was cold all over, see, and his fingers were going numb, and why aren't you helping me, WHY WON'T YOU FIX ME?

-o-o-o-

Little Ienzo was just seven years old when little Myde called him from his new house that was so very far away, and his cold, dead heart gave a painful lurch and suddenly was beating again, wildly fast as though to make up for all the time it had been lying frozen, and that was when little Ienzo figured out the problem all by himself.

"Will I ever see you again?" little Ienzo asked, clutching the receiver in his little, little hands, biting his lip.

"What kinda question is that?" little Myde demanded. Little Ienzo imagined his little best friend with his little clenched fists and gave a little, shaky smile.

"I'm not alive without you..." he whispered (a little, little whisper).

"Yeah," said little Myde quietly. "Yeah, me too."

Ienzo was eleven when he started to make new friends, though he wasn't really sure how that had happened, anyway-none of them were anything like little Myde.

"You're not my best friend," Ienzo said when the topic was broached. "None of you are."

Axel just laughed. "Yeah? Who, then?"

"..."

"Aw, come on, Zexion. Why keep it a secret?"

"It's just... don't you already know? It's Myde, of course."

"...Who?"

Ienzo stared at them, expression just as perplexed at their response as they were at his. "Myde. My best friend. He's part mermaid and part angel. His eyes are made from the sea, and his smile is made from sunshine."

"...Really, Zexion? You're the last person I expected to have an imaginary friend. And when you're already _eleven_, too."

Ienzo grew a little angry at that. "He's not imaginary. He's real, but he had to leave for a while, and then my heart stopped beating."

"...How are you still alive, then?"

The following shouting match was loud enough that no one was ever quite brave enough to broach the topic again later, not even Axel, and so little Myde and little best friends became something of a tabooed topic.

-o-o-o-

Ienzo was fifteen when Axel dropped by his house early.

"Is Zexion home yet?" he asked, smiling at Ienzo's mother charmingly.

She laughed, letting him in and sitting him down on the couch. "Yes, he is," she said. "But he's on the phone right now."

"Really? Who's he talking to?"

"Oh, I'm pretty sure he's just listening to the dial tone."

"Um..."

"I think he finds it therapeutic. The beeping, you know? Maybe it makes him think of a heartbeat. Anyway, he started it not long after he began having fits about his heart stopping, and it was the only thing that ever calmed him down. I don't know if there's any harm in it."

"His heart stopping? He mentioned that once, but we've sorta been avoiding the topic since then..."

"Yes," she sighed. "He's a bit of a strange child, isn't he..."

-o-o-o-

Ienzo was twenty-six when he asked Myde to marry him.

It was over the phone, like always, and he was very nervous, because he and Myde weren't even dating or anything.

"Wha-What? Are you-You're not being serious, are you?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"I-Ienzo, we don't even know when we'll see each other again. Do you really want to be married to a grainy voice?"

"If it's you."

"I mean, shouldn't you go out and meet someone, someone you can really... you know, be with?"

"The only person I want to be with is you, Myde."

"I-"

And then there was just dial tone. Ienzo stared at the receiver for a long while, before giving a slow nod and gently placing it back on its hook.

-o-o-o-

Ienzo was fifteen when his mother asked Axel about Myde.

"It's just, Zexion talks about him sometimes, but I've never actually gotten the chance to meet him..."

Axel stared at her expressionlessly. "What does he say?"

"Oh, you know... the usual. 'Myde said that new movie was great,'s and 'Myde thinks I should keep my bangs long,'s and 'Myde plays all those instruments,'s and things like that. The boy is some sort of musical genius, as I gather."

"Did he mention the one about eyes made of sea and a smile made of sunshine?

Ienzo's mom giggled delightedly. "No, he left that bit out. It sounds like my boy has a bit of a crush. Why oh why are the mothers always the last ones to know?"

"I dunno about that. Just that I've never met this Myde person, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't exist. I guess he's been Zexion's best friend since forever."

"Since forever?"

"Yeah, since he was five or six or something."

"That can't be right... I remember Zexion's first best friend, and he wasn't named Myde..."

-o-o-o-

Ienzo was twenty-six when he got the call.

It was months after the last time Myde and he had spoken; the longest they'd ever gone without talking since they'd first met. He answered the phone slowly, nervously. He knew it was Myde who was waiting on the other end. He always knew.

"Hello?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"Yes, I will."

"...What?"

"Yes, I will marry you."

Ienzo's breath left him, and he felt dizzy. It turned out that silence was the wrong response, though.

"I mean, is too late? I-fuck, I mean," Ienzo had never heard Myde cuss before. It made everything even more surreal. "I mean, of course you've changed your mind, I mean, I don't even know why you would have wanted to in the first place-"

"Do you not, then?"

"Huh?"

"If you don't understand why I would want to, then surely you don't want to yourself. Don't agree to this just to spare my feelings, Myde."

"That's not what I meant. Ienzo, you have your whole life to meet someone amazing, someone who can... be there for you."

"You're here for me. Even when it's impossible, you're here for me."

"Ienzo..."

"And anyway, don't you? Don't you have the chance to meet someone new?"

"There's no one for me here, Ienzo."

"It's the same for me."

There was a moment of silence, before Ienzo said, "So... we're getting married, then?"

Myde laughed. "I guess so. How is this even going to work?"

"I'll buy the rings."

"How'll I get mine?"

"I'll give it to you. When we see each other, I'll give it to you."

-o-o-o-

Ienzo was twenty-six when he bought a pair of rings-gold and studded with diamonds, more for tradition than aesthetics.

Only one of the two rings ever got worn.

-o-o-o-

Ienzo was fifteen when his mother showed Axel the pictures.

A cute little boy with slate-grey hair hugging a laughing blond.

"This was his best friend, back when he was six or so."

"Yeah? He looks kinda familiar... Hard to forget that hair, I'd think."

"He was in an accident. There was a lot of news coverage at the time. He name was Demyx."

"Huh. So he... didn't make it?"

"No... he didn't. Zexion was pretty torn up. He just went completely crazy."

"Sh-er...Shoot. But he's mostly okay now, right?"

"Sometimes... sometimes I wonder."

-o-o-o-

Ienzo was eighty-two when his heart stopped beating.

He had been lying in bed reading, and then quite suddenly he wasn't anymore. It was uncomfortable and disorientating, and then Ienzo couldn't think of negative adjectives anymore, because Myde had finally come back and was giving him that sunlight-smile.

Little Myde was just as Ienzo remembered him-tiny hands and huge, sea-filled eyes.

But wait. That frown was new.

"What's wrong?" Ienzo asked, biting his lip. He hoped Myde wasn't disappointed.

"I-it's just. You haven't. You haven't aged at all!"

Ienzo glanced behind him, large blue eyes taking in the wrinkled old man with his sparse white hair lying under the triple layer of blankets. His family and all of his friends were long since dead, but Axel's youngest grand-daughter still came by to take care of Ienzo, helping him through the daily routines that had become so difficult in recent years. Ienzo marvelled at her sometimes; despite the lack of blood relation, she was more like Axel than she was either of her parents, and Axel had never even lived long enough to meet her.

But that was all something else, part of a lifetime that had never really happened.

He turned back to Myde. "Of course not," he said. "My heart stopped beating when I was seven, after all."

-o-o-o-

When Ienzo and Myde walked off together, Ienzo shyly clasped Myde's left hand. He blinked when he felt something hard beneath his fingertips, and looked down sharply.

There was the pair to his ring, gold and diamond-studded and resting on Myde's finger where it belonged.

END

-o-o-o-

-o-o-o-

-o-o-o-

[A/N: lolwut I've been wanting to write a million cliches for a while now, but... this isn't really how I thought I'd start.

I wrote this while listening to Epica's _Tides __of __Time_, but despite any influences which may or may not appear in this fic, I notice that I managed to leave out all the elegance. Oops.

Ahem. Happy Halloween!]


End file.
